There are two schools of thought about Pope Benedict and the child sex abuse that has disgraced the Roman Catholic church for decades. One view is that he connived in the ostrich-like policy of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. The other is that he had no option but to go along with that policy (the Vatican being, after all, an absolute monarchy).

The outcome of an extraordinary summit at the Vatican which ends today will show just how far he is prepared to go in fulfilling his implied pledge, before his election as pope, to sweep the "filth" from the Catholic church. The entire Irish hierarchy finds itself nearing the conclusion of a hauling over the coals such as it has never experienced before, motivated by the publication last year of two damning reports detailing extensive child sex abuse in parishes and church-run institutions.

I am told that the only precedent for the summoning to Rome of an entire bishops' conference dates back in the 1980s and involved the leadership of the Swiss church (though it had nothing to do with abuse).

On Monday, the sessions prepared for the leaders of the Irish church began at eight in the morning and lasted until eight at night. One by one, the 24 bishops called to the Vatican went before what was, in effect, a tribunal including cardinals and other senior church officials and, for much of the time, the pope himself. Each had to give an account of what had happened in his diocese and how he intended dealing with the consequences. Then his explanation was subjected to comment and analysis by the Vatican's representatives. It is not hard to imagine what an excruciatingly discomforting experience this must have been (though, of course, it pales to insignificance beside the suffering that some of those present let be inflicted on helpless young victims in parishes and church-run institutions).

The view in Rome is that the Irish bishops' handling of the whole issue has been appalling. Officials point to the lack of a co-ordinated response to the allegations and disclosures as they have emerged. Some bishops indeed have been openly at odds with their peers.

The Irish church is seen as being more alarmingly and profoundly in crisis than any other in the developed world. Some Irish prelates share that view.

I understand that, at the meeting of the bishops that reviewed the Murphy report on abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin, one of their number suggested that the position was so dire they should resign. All of them.

One of the issues that Benedict and his most senior advisers will have to agree on is the reason, or reasons, for what they are already convinced is a gross failure of episcopal leadership. One view is that the Irish hierarchy is simply too big. Ireland, with four million Catholics, has 26 dioceses – just one less than Germany, which has a church that is 35 million-strong. More bishops means that the average calibre of each tends to be lower, and co-ordination between them is proportionately more difficult. It has been suggested that the number of dioceses should be cut back to eight – a proposal the Irish bishops have been resisting with a unanimity that was noticeably lacking in their response to the scandal that brought them to Rome.

But structural reform, however necessary, is a way of addressing the reaction to the scandal, and not the scandal itself. For the victims, what matters above all is that the church should acknowledge the responsibility of its pastors by getting rid of those bishops who have been found to have turned a blind eye to abuse. It is not much to ask. Yet so far only one bishop has been stripped of his powers and only one of the four resignations that have been tendered has been accepted.